Posted on 03/01/2006 7:09:06 AM PST by ZGuy
In the United States, living together instead of marrying has become the norm for couples -- half of young adults aged 20-40 are cohabiting instead of getting married. Cohabitation has increased nearly 1,000% since 1980, and the marriage rate has dropped more than 40% since 1960.
Some see substituting living together for marriage as an insignificant shift in family “structure.” Those who are better informed realize that the shift has disastrous ramifications for the individuals involved, as well as for society and public policy.
The faulty reasoning leading young adults to make such a poor choice must be exposed. Here are four myths surrounding the shift.
Myth No. 1: Living Together Is a Good Way to “Test the Water”
Many couples say that they want to live together to see if they are compatible, not realizing that cohabitation is more a preparation for divorce than a way to strengthen the likelihood of a successful marriage -- the divorce rates of women who cohabit are nearly 80% higher than those who do not. In fact, studies indicate that cohabiting couples have lower marital quality and increased risk of divorce. Further, cohabiting relationships tend to be fragile and relatively short in duration; less than half of cohabiting relationships last five or more years. Typically, they last about 18 months.
Myth No. 2: Couples Don’t Really Need That “Piece of Paper”
A major problem with cohabitation is that it is a tentative arrangement that lacks stability; no one can depend upon the relationship -- not the partners, not the children, not the community, nor the society. Such relationships contribute little to those inside and certainly little to those outside the arrangement. Sometimes couples choose to live together as a substitute for marriage, indicating that, in case the relationship goes sour, they can avoid the trouble, expense and emotional trauma of a divorce. With such a weak bond between the two parties, there is little likelihood that they will work through their problems or that they will maintain the relationship under pressure.
Myth No. 3: Cohabiting Relationships Usually Lead to Marriage
During the 1970s, about 60% of cohabiting couples married each other within three years, but this proportion has since declined to less than 40%. While women today still tend to expect that “cohabitation will lead to marriage,” numerous studies of college students have found that men typically cohabit simply because it is “convenient.” In fact, there is general agreement among scholars that living together before marriage puts women at a distinct disadvantage in terms of “power.” A college professor described a survey that he conducted over a period of years in his marriage classes. He asked guys who were living with a girl, point blank, “Are you going to marry the girl that you’re living with?” The overwhelming response, he reports, was “NO!” When he asked the girls if they were going to marry the guy they were living with, their response was, “Oh, yes; we love each other and we are learning how to be together.”
Myth No. 4: Cohabiting Relationships Are More Egalitarian Than Marriage
It is common knowledge that women and children suffer more poverty after a cohabiting relationship breaks up, but it’s not so well understood that there is typically an economic imbalance in favor of the man within such relationships, too. While couples who live together say that they plan to share expenses equally, more often than not the women support the men. Studies show that women typically contribute more than 70% of the income in a cohabiting relationship. Likewise, the women tend to do more of the cleaning, cooking and laundry. If they are students, as is often the case, and facing economic or time constraints that require a reduction in class load, it is almost invariably the woman, not the man, who drops a class.
So What’s the Conclusion?
A mass of sociological evidence shows that cohabitation is an inferior alternative to the married, intact, two-parent, husband-and-wife family. Increasingly, the myths of living together without marriage are like a mirror shattered by the force of the facts that expose the reality of cohabitation.
Dr. Crouse is senior fellow of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute.
Here in Kalistan judges have been known to throw out pre-nups.
Not in every court district I'm afraid.
In every court district. If both parties can agree on their own terms, the court does not involve itself. The court gets involved in the details only when people involve it.
Not at all. A married woman, particularly a Christian, could, should and usually does, have a great sex life.
I'll admit to being a little old fashioned. I know how men are and I know how women usually are.
For example, when you see a guy is the first natural thought to your mind "I'd hit that"? Probably not. But for most men it is. We try to supress that but the instinct is still there. In most cohabitational relationships the guy is there for the sex.
Missed this. I count both of them as victims. Premarital sex is seldom a good thing. It always has a cost that shows up later in life or even later in the relationship. People are far better off remaining pure until they are married
Yes. But court ordered punitive divorce terms are decidedly tilted.
sad but true.
I'm not blind to the ways men and women approach sex differently, but the point is, men and women make relationship decisions that are mutually acceptable if not beneficial to both for their own reasons. To say that one is merely using the other if a couple lives together before marriage is overly simplistic and under estimates the responsibility both people have for their own actions.
I've read your posts on the above and agree. In divorce situations, throughout American history, women were most often awarded custody of the children, and then also the house because they were awarded custody of the children. These court decisions have NOTHING to do with feminism or even no fault divorce, though divorce, itself, has been on the increase since no fault divorce was instituted. Because more men are experiencing divorce, it is my belief more men are angry about the traditional way the courts have handled divorce. And yes, you are correct. Most couples decide how to handle things, outside of the courtroom.
What I can't stand is that all my married friends with kids never miss an opportunity to ask "When are you guys getting married...when are you having kids?"
Arrrggghhh. I have told them countless times & it never sinks in. My parents don't even ask, but these cult like married folks never stop recruiting.
I don't know where you got this from. I was never asked about his choice of women so I never remarked on it. Was he wrong to marry her, probably, but I didn't know either of them at that point so I can't say for sure.
I will say that any man who marries a divorced woman had better look real close to be sure that her husband was a total cad (that is that he broke the marriage). I'd say the same for any woman marrying a divorced man. I've know several men who've been divorced multiple times and I always wonder why anyone would marry them. Seems if he failed two or more times the odds were very good that he'd fail again.
But you are quick to blame women first in any situation.
You don't know that. You've not seen my response to every situation. Also, in this thread I thought I was blaming both sides of the cohabitation without long haul committment group.
The truth is in divorce situations, the percentage of men and women who are wronged, approaches parity.
I've just not seen that. In the areas I am familiar with the guy gets shafted far more often.
When it gets to court, most courts decide divorce cases the way they have traditionally been handled. Because more couples than ever before in our history are divorcing, more men are speaking out against the way the courts have traditionally decided divorce cases.
I think people are happier if they have dogs. I like a yard with trees in it. I think people should use bright colors when they paint.
These are opinions, John. While I can see societal benefits to the monogamy that has traditionally come from celibacy before marriage, the lack of celibacy was not necessarily the part of the act that brought the benefit, the monogamy and commitment after the commitment was.
Have you maybe talked to more men than women about it?
I've seen enough of your responses, on enough threads to tell, John. Your comments about women are far more negative then your comments about men. And you've been called on them several times by a number of us. Not until Hair and I pointed them out to you on this thread, did your comments become more reasonable.
As I said before, I am grateful for the men in my life who were FAIR when it came to these topics. I have never heard them phrase things the way you do and thank God. There is NOTHING in what they said which gave me an inkling that such was the way they really thought either.
I can recall in highschool hearing the female students who went "too far" with the male students being called "whores." The unfairness of it, struck a strong chord with me, because it wasn't what I was taught at home, or in religion class either. My beliefs about it haven't changed and never will. Some of the comments you make are precisely the same kind of thinking.
Where were you when I need you?????
I actually did a count of the divorced people I know. And women wronged to men wronged comes up almost equal, with women wronged slightly ahead. And some of the spouses who were the culprits, were family and friends.
All I know from knowing people is if you only hear one side, you don't know the whole story. :~D
People rarely admit their own fault in a situation, though I have met some people who do.
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